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Author Topic: Throne Room  (Read 7367 times)

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philosophyguy

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Throne Room
« on: April 24, 2012, 12:32:53 am »
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How do you play Throne Room? The obvious parallel is with King's Court, but besides the fact that King's Court is game-warpingly powerful when stacked, there are another couple of key disanalogies:

1) By the time you can afford a KC, you usually have a decent action density. So, there's a lower chance of KC being drawn dead. By contrast, TR only costs $4, so you can get it after the first or second shuffle and still have an ok chance of not drawing it with an action card.

2) Since KC costs $7, it's rare that you have to overspend for it. By contrast, TR's $4 price trades off with important $5 or $6 cards unless you buy the TR really early (and then see #1).

The obvious ways to work around 1 and 2 are with gainers or +Buy. But, in the absence of those elements, what makes TR worthwhile?
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Galzria

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #1 on: April 24, 2012, 12:45:57 am »
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For me, and I may be way off, I find that I often ignore it, unless I'm:

A) Planning an action heavy deck from the start, with decent trashing, and figure the chances of drawing it dead are slim. In this case I don't care as much about what it pairs with, just that it isn't dead. Still, I won't skip a pricepoint for it.

B) I see a lot of single action cantrips - Lab, Stable, GH, etc. - but NO villages of any kind. Here I know I can draw my deck out easily, but with only 1 action, I need a good reason to. TR chains allow me multiple terminal plays - even when forced to TR a cantrip.

C) Similar to B, if I know that I want more terminals than actions available to me (think Goons + Bridge, with only Worker's Village... Oh gods. Yum.). Here I want to TR-TR-TR... To get multiple action plays off 1 action.
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Quote from: Voltgloss
Derphammering is when quickhammers go derp.

Faust has also been incredibly stubborn this game. In other news, it's hot in the summer, and water falls from the sky when it rains.


Mafia Record:
TOWN Wins: M3, M5, M6, M11, M17, M28, M32, M105, M108, M114, M118, M120, M122, DM1, DoM1, OZ2, RM45, RM47, RM48, RM49, RM55
TOWN Losses: M4, M7, M8, M9, M13, M14, M18, M31, M110, M111, M113, M117, M125, RM3, RM4, RM54
SCUM Wins: M2, M19, M23, M100, DM3, RM1, RM2, RM48, RM50
SCUM Losses: M15 (SK), M102 (Tr), OZ1, RM55

Total Wins: 30
Total Losses: 20

olneyce

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2012, 12:46:42 am »
+4

I have increasingly found Throne Room to be far less powerful than it once seemed.  I tend to think it is most useful when it allows doubling something that you would otherwise be unable to double in the game.  Which usually means: there are no villages so you can't play terminals twice. 

It's not even necessarily that you need to Throne Room the terminal, though.  Using a Throne Room to get a de facto village from a cantrip (thus enabling an engine on a board that otherwise wouldn't quite enable it) is often more useful than trying to match up the TR and terminal in a 5-card hand.

But even there, you really need good action density since you'll need at least two (and often three) separate cards to match up together. 

My general rule of thumb (with plenty of exceptions, of course) is to not invest in Throne Rooms unless there is a very good chance to gain two (or more) action cards on a series of mid-game turns.  If that isn't going to happen, the Throne Room is not likely to be any more useful than just buying a normal card.  Often far less useful.

I also usually only go for Throne Rooms if I intend to get several.  There are not many decks that are improved enough by one Throne Room to make up for the opportunity cost of buying it.  It needs to be part of an integrated strategy to get real value most of the time.

The fact that Throne Room autoplays is one other reason that it's worse than King's Court.  That doesn't matter all that often, but it can be a real killer sometimes.

Throne Room combos pretty well with handsize increasers (like Wharf), especially when there are cantrips on the board.  It makes the construction of a TR-based engine far simpler because your hand is bigger, and it massively increases the power of the Wharves if you can stack them.  Like King's Court, it also combos well with Scheme - guaranteeing you can match up your key cards fairly regularly.  Though only getting two Scheme plays out of the two cards means you're always going to play more actions than you can re-stack.  So it's still WAY less powerful than KC/KC/Scheme.
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ftl

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2012, 12:54:57 am »
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Throne-Room/Scheme! It's pretty nice. It's like a permanent village. I once had a game with Sea Hag, Steward, Scheme, Throne Room, where we both thrashed around with curses and at the end of that, I would start every turn with Throne Room->Throne Room->Scheme-Steward which exploded to a consistent province per turn. It was a really weird game, there were literally no turns that I got above 4 and then suddenly I was consistently drawing my whole deck and getting $8, with only sub-$5 cards in my deck.

I suppose I'll pick it out in games where I'll get a high action density but have a weird mid-game $4 turn, or a mid-game turn with an extra buy when I draw $7 but what I really need is the $3 village. I had a University/Gardens game recently, once the gardens were gone but the game was still going, throne rooms were great to pick up with $4 hands because the universities guaranteed that there were useful throneable things around.

I don't think I use it very well usually :( but I've avoided having it be a trap for me, at least.
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Asklepios

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2012, 04:04:32 am »
+1

I tend to avoid Throne Room most of the time. It draws dead (with no action card) no more often than King's Court, of course, but when it doesn't draw dead, its not necessarily a power hand, whereas King's Court-anything normally means you're setting up for a big turn.

Also there's the weaker multiplication:
Throne Room, Throne Room, Action doubled, Action doubled, = four effects from four cards
Throne Room, Throne Room, Action doubled, Throne Room, Action doubled, Action doubled, = six effects from six cards.

King's Court, King Court, Action tripled  = three effects from three cards
King's Court, King Court, Action tripled, Action tripled, King Court, Action tripled, Action tripled, Action tripled = fifteen effects from eight cards

So King's Court gets more and more powerful the more of them you have, whereas Throne Room doesn't.

That means that with Throne Room you're not really gaining net effect: the only real benefit is economy of +action, in that you can play two cards for two effects at cost of 1 action rather than 2 actions. In my mind, that makes Throne Room the same as Village: it often replaces itself and you end up one action up. The difference, of course, is when you play Throne Room on a terminal: in that case, its like having played a village already, then getting another copy of the active card, but being obliged to play both those copies immediately.

Where it comes into its own, in my opinion, is the same place that villages come into their own: dense engine decks that expect to play most or all of their deck each turn. King's Court, in contrast, works in any deck that has at least average action density, and is only really excluded when you're looking at Province games with no attacks or +buys and a straight BM+X optimal strategy.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2012, 04:11:23 am by Asklepios »
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DG

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2012, 06:37:44 am »
+1

King's court is a lot easier than the throne room to play. Throne's came first though so perhaps people need longer memories.

A throne might become a cheaper copy of another card, perhaps a grand market.
You can choose which action to throne as suits your needs (market or coppersmith?).
Changing the target card for a throne during the game makes it more flexible than buying more copies of the target cards.
Thrones can create actions - throne with market is a clear 1 action better than two markets.
Thrones can conserve actions - a hand of village, smithy, throne has two options. Village then throne on smithy is strong.
You can gain thrones more easily than the expensive cards they can target.
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dondon151

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2012, 07:05:13 am »
+1

Attacks that are normally not-so-nasty (Thief, Sab, Noble Brigand) are crippling when throned consistently.
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ecq

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #7 on: April 24, 2012, 09:18:01 am »
+1

It's also useful for situations where you want as many of a particular card as possible and its pile has drained.  You can't have another copy of the card, so it's the next best thing.

Also, cards with high cost have been mentioned, but Scrying Pool bears special mention.  You want a certain density of pools ASAP, which can be hard to get with the Potion cost.  Usually you get one per shuffle max.  Throne Room helps your action density and lacks the awkward Potion cost (even better if Ironworks is around).  Further, with Scrying Pool, you're probably working on action density with your other buys, so even if you don't draw it with a Pool, you probably have something else you'd like to double.
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Asklepios

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #8 on: April 24, 2012, 09:33:14 am »
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It's also useful for situations where you want as many of a particular card as possible and its pile has drained.  You can't have another copy of the card, so it's the next best thing.

Also, cards with high cost have been mentioned, but Scrying Pool bears special mention.  You want a certain density of pools ASAP, which can be hard to get with the Potion cost.  Usually you get one per shuffle max.  Throne Room helps your action density and lacks the awkward Potion cost (even better if Ironworks is around).  Further, with Scrying Pool, you're probably working on action density with your other buys, so even if you don't draw it with a Pool, you probably have something else you'd like to double.

I'd agree with that: Scrying Pool and Throne Room are definitely natural partners.
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theory

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #9 on: April 24, 2012, 10:04:09 am »
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I think even if KC was in this game it wouldn't play as important a role as TR.  The cheapness of TR and the fact that you can get it early on lends itself well to a cheaper, faster engine (as opposed to the monster megaturn engines).
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Asklepios

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #10 on: April 24, 2012, 10:13:00 am »
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I think even if KC was in this game it wouldn't play as important a role as TR.  The cheapness of TR and the fact that you can get it early on lends itself well to a cheaper, faster engine (as opposed to the monster megaturn engines).

True, in a Minion race you're liable to spend $7 on a Minion rather than a King's Court, but $4 for a Throne Room is eminently reasonable.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2012, 10:16:40 am »
+2

I think even if KC was in this game it wouldn't play as important a role as TR.  The cheapness of TR and the fact that you can get it early on lends itself well to a cheaper, faster engine (as opposed to the monster megaturn engines).

True, in a Minion race you're liable to spend $7 on a Minion rather than a King's Court
???  :o

jomini

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #12 on: April 24, 2012, 10:37:48 am »
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TR adds flexibility to engines that otherwise wouldn't be there. We all know that you can play throne room/cantrip to make a village, but you can also chain throne rooms to do the same thing TR->TR->Draw->TR is perfectly viable without any cantrips. An unbelievably strong example of this is TR/Golem - it just becomes so easy to play huge numbers of actions by having a golem hit a throne room and then having said throne room hit a golem for 4 more actions (TR -> Golem -> TR -> golem leaves you 7 actions to play from anywhere in your discard - including ones gained during this turn - for playing just 4 cards).

Further, TR can change its function over the course of the game. In chapel driven engine game you might start out with Nomad camp/Chapel and buy a TR at 4 so you can play TR/NC with a copper and buy the key 5 (e.g. minion) and then swap over to playing mostly TR/Minion treating the TR as a cheap minion with an extra action. Late game you might use TR/Remodel to quickly end the game before your opponent can surpass you. You could replace each of these with: a silver early on to hit 5, another minion in mid game, and maybe a second remodel in the late game, but that is three cards without heavy utility throughout the game. TR is buy it once and forget it.

There are a lot of cases where I want throne room to be: my psuedo village, a cheaper copy of an expensive card, a flexible card that change function, and a source of diversity (HoP, Fairgrounds, etc.). Gaining extra action cards helps make all of those viable, but so to does heavy trashing (where action density goes up quickly and the opportunity cost of a dead throne is less) or colony games  (where a dead throne is less important as long as you still can buy an engine component).
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Quadell

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #13 on: April 24, 2012, 11:00:05 am »
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Olneyce, your tips on Throne Room are great, and could be the beginning of an article. But I'm confused about this:

The fact that Throne Room autoplays is one other reason that it's worse than King's Court.  That doesn't matter all that often, but it can be a real killer sometimes.

I know that KC says I "may" choose an action, while TR forces me to, but I wouldn't normally play Throne Room unless I wanted to choose an action. I can only think of two cases where that would matter. I can imagine playing Golem, revealing a Throne Room and something else, and only having a Trader (or another mandatory trasher) and good cards in my hand. That would have to be be pretty rare, I'd imagine, and would be no riskier than the direct danger of revealing the Trader with my Golem.

The other situation I can imagine is having 2 Throne Rooms and a terminal drawer in my hand. Simply throning the drawer would get me extra cards, but no way to play the actions I draw. Throning the TR and then choosing the drawer would allow me to draw and then play (twice) any action I draw... but would also require me to play it (twice). This could lead to an amusing Ambassadorial disaster, for instance. Is this the sort of situation you meant?
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WanderingWinder

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #14 on: April 24, 2012, 11:08:36 am »
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Olneyce, your tips on Throne Room are great, and could be the beginning of an article. But I'm confused about this:

The fact that Throne Room autoplays is one other reason that it's worse than King's Court.  That doesn't matter all that often, but it can be a real killer sometimes.

I know that KC says I "may" choose an action, while TR forces me to, but I wouldn't normally play Throne Room unless I wanted to choose an action. I can only think of two cases where that would matter. I can imagine playing Golem, revealing a Throne Room and something else, and only having a Trader (or another mandatory trasher) and good cards in my hand. That would have to be be pretty rare, I'd imagine, and would be no riskier than the direct danger of revealing the Trader with my Golem.

The other situation I can imagine is having 2 Throne Rooms and a terminal drawer in my hand. Simply throning the drawer would get me extra cards, but no way to play the actions I draw. Throning the TR and then choosing the drawer would allow me to draw and then play (twice) any action I draw... but would also require me to play it (twice). This could lead to an amusing Ambassadorial disaster, for instance. Is this the sort of situation you meant?
The second situation can really suck, and comes up more often than you might think (though still not very often). And it can be any drawer, not just a terminal one. Yes, if it's non-terminal, you can always throne separately. But if you have sufficient terminals in your deck... you may want the extra actions that throning throne provides you.

Jfrisch

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #15 on: April 24, 2012, 02:12:22 pm »
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just posted an article on it.
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sherwinpr

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Re: Throne Room
« Reply #16 on: April 28, 2012, 12:47:59 pm »
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Olneyce, your tips on Throne Room are great, and could be the beginning of an article. But I'm confused about this:

The fact that Throne Room autoplays is one other reason that it's worse than King's Court.  That doesn't matter all that often, but it can be a real killer sometimes.

I know that KC says I "may" choose an action, while TR forces me to, but I wouldn't normally play Throne Room unless I wanted to choose an action. I can only think of two cases where that would matter. I can imagine playing Golem, revealing a Throne Room and something else, and only having a Trader (or another mandatory trasher) and good cards in my hand. That would have to be be pretty rare, I'd imagine, and would be no riskier than the direct danger of revealing the Trader with my Golem.

The other situation I can imagine is having 2 Throne Rooms and a terminal drawer in my hand. Simply throning the drawer would get me extra cards, but no way to play the actions I draw. Throning the TR and then choosing the drawer would allow me to draw and then play (twice) any action I draw... but would also require me to play it (twice). This could lead to an amusing Ambassadorial disaster, for instance. Is this the sort of situation you meant?
The second situation can really suck, and comes up more often than you might think (though still not very often). And it can be any drawer, not just a terminal one. Yes, if it's non-terminal, you can always throne separately. But if you have sufficient terminals in your deck... you may want the extra actions that throning throne provides you.

I think another example would be when you want to make Peddler cheaper (or Horn of Plenty stronger), but don't want to follow it up with an undesirable action (Ambassador or a trasher).  You'd play KC, but not TR in such a case.  The only other actions I can think of that you wouldn't want to be forced into Throning would be Tactician (in situations where the money in your hand is expected to be more valuable than the Tactician bonus in the following turn), and Outpost (say, during what is already an Outpost turn; though I don't know if many people buy multiple Outposts, but hay maybe you were Swindled into it).
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